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The Last Kiss (L'ultimo bacio)

Movie · 2001 · 3 people

Gabriele Muccino wrote and directed the 2001 Italian comedy-drama The Last Kiss (L'ultimo bacio). Following Come te nessuno mai, which made Muccino known at home, it was a loud success in Italy, winning five David di Donatello and three Nastro d'argento awards plus the Sundance World Cinema Audience Award. The Fandango production opened in Italy on 2 February 2001 and reached Turkish cinemas on 26 September 2003.

The story centres on friends nearing thirty who start to doubt settled choices. Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) is married to the pregnant Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) yet cannot adapt to married life. Young Francesca (Martina Stella, in her first film role) falls in love with him, while Giulia's mother Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), unhappy after thirty years of marriage, thinks of leaving. Carlo's friends Adriano, Paolo, Alberto and Marco (Giorgio Pasotti, Claudio Santamaria, Marco Cocci, Pierfrancesco Favino) drift between love, infidelity and responsibility. The film reads the crisis as the modern man's Peter Pan syndrome: fear of being swallowed by obligations.

The title song is by Carmen Consoli, who also has a short cameo. The film runs 115 minutes in Italian. Muccino directed a sequel, Baciami ancora, in 2010. Tony Goldwyn's 2006 American remake The Last Kiss, starring Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson, reused most scenes but, many critics felt, missed the original's melancholy.

DirectorGabriele Muccino
Production companyFandango

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Stefania Sandrelli Stefania Sandrelli Actor · 80 years old Luigi Diberti Luigi Diberti Actor · 87 years old Elisabetta Rocchetti Elisabetta Rocchetti Actor · 51 years old

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Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Gabriele Muccino's L'ultimo bacio tells the crisis of a group of friends nearing thirty through interlocking stories, and it largely pulls off that ensemble structure. Stefano Accorsi's Carlo, the central figure who cannot adapt to married life, shoulders the film's tension, while Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Stefania Sandrelli set up a mirror between two generations: one is expecting a baby, the other is unhappy after thirty years of marriage. Five David di Donatello awards and the Sundance audience award show it connected with critics and viewers alike. On the other hand, the 115-minute running time and relentless emotional intensity may wear some viewers out, and one can ask whether the women are drawn with as much depth as the men's crisis. Still, it is an energetic film that keeps the melancholy which, many critics felt, the 2006 American remake missed.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film portrays the growing pains of a generation that, nearing thirty, starts to doubt choices it thought were settled. Carlo's failure to adapt to his marriage with the pregnant Giulia is, in the film's own reading, the modern man's Peter Pan syndrome: the fear of being crushed by obligations. What is interesting is that the crisis is not confined to the young; Anna, unhappy after thirty years of marriage and thinking of leaving, shows how the institution of family is questioned across generations. Friends drifting between love, infidelity and responsibility mirror the tension between traditional family values and the desire for personal freedom. Released in Turkish cinemas in 2003, the film draws a world that will feel far from foreign to viewers asking the same questions.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Muccino's film is energetic and well acted, that much must be granted. Stefania Sandrelli's Anna, unhappy after thirty years of marriage, is its most touching face. But for an eye raised on the classics, most of the characters are hard to love. Among men drifting between love, infidelity and responsibility, ready to run from their promises, you find yourself searching for a moral centre to hold on to. Carmen Consoli's song is lovely and lingers. Even so, anyone hoping for a heartfelt love story may feel a little out of place in this restless world.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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